


grows better by delay

by copacet



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fairy Tale Curses, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-20 22:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16564382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copacet/pseuds/copacet
Summary: While exploring a new planet in search of supplies during the journey to Earth, Keith pricks his finger on the thorn of a rose and falls into a sleep from which nothing can wake him.





	grows better by delay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



“Is it just me,” said Lance, “or is this planet a little too perfect?”

“I think it’s nice.” Romelle’s voice was decisive as she turned her face upward, closing her eyes against the brightness of the midday sun. “You’re just paranoid because we’ve been in those lions for too long.”

Shiro looked around. Romelle was right: it was a nice planet. The sky was precisely the right shade of blue, familiar and comforting. The air was fresh and crisp. The grass crunching under their feet was a deep, verdant green, the sort of color Shiro had only seen on Earth in pictures of rainforests. They must have arrived during springtime, because flowers of every color of the rainbow bloomed around them. The fruit hanging from the trees around them was plump and ripe and inviting and—most important of all—edible, at least according to Coran. With its Earthlike atmosphere, it was an ideal world for them to stop on and restock their supplies.

“Aw, look,” said Hunk. “Rose bushes!” Shiro turned to see him standing next to a plant that did indeed appear to bear a striking resemblance to an Earthly rosebush, perfectly-shaped buds of spiralling scarlet petals vivid against the deep green of the shrub’s leaves. “Man, these look just like real roses,” Hunk continued. “And—oh! They smell like them too!”

Pidge, at the front of the group, stopped walking and turned around. “Please don’t tell me we’re going to literally stop and smell the roses.” But even as she spoke, she crossed back to where Hunk was standing. “Huh, those do look like real roses. What are the chances?”

Lance walked around the plant, eying it with his face scrunched. “What _are_ the chances? I’m telling you, this place is too perfect.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow at him. “What are you saying?”

Lance spread his arms wide, gesturing at the horizon. “We’ve walked into some sort of computer simulation,” he announced. “We’re being trapped by some sort of artificial intelligence! It’s the only explanation!”

Shiro glanced over at Keith walking beside him. Keith looked about as impressed by that explanation as Shiro felt, and Shiro was barely able to suppress a grin.

“Not necessarily,” said Pidge. “This could just be convergent evolution! Even on Earth, some species without a common ancestor adapt in the same ways and end up with similar features." She crouched down in front of the bush, arms folded and resting atop her knees as she studied the flowers. "It’s pretty cool, actually.”

Lance shook his head. “Nope, definitely a computer simulation. I’m telling you guys, none of this is real. Nobody touch anything.”

Shiro glanced over again and caught Keith rolling his eyes. “We’re not in a simulation,” Keith said firmly, stepping forward. “This is a real planet.” He walked over to the bush where the others were standing. “This is a real plant.” He reached a hand towards the bush. “And this—”

“Don’t touch that!”  

“This is just a flower,” Keith said, snapping off one of the roses at the stem. “See?” He held it up for the rest of them to look at, his eyes, for some reason, flicking over to Shiro and then away again. Keith rolled the stem in between his fingers. “Nothing strange— _ow_.”

Keith dropped the flower. Shiro opened his mouth to tease him for being caught by something as predictable as a rose-thorn, but before he could say anything, Keith crumpled to the ground.

* * *

In the heart of the Black Lion, Keith lay still and unmoving, his skin waxen and the rise and fall of his chest barely perceptible. Allura bent over him, her fingers framing his face and suffusing the air around them with a magenta glow. From his chair at the side of Keith’s bed, Shiro watched both of them, looking from one to the other and then back again in hopes of seeing some sign that the magic was working.

They’d tried putting Keith in a healing pod after he’d first collapsed, to no avail—he’d only continued to get weaker. Shiro had hoped that Allura’s Altean healing magic might do better, might prove as effective on Keith as it had on him. From the way Allura was gritting her teeth, face scrunched in increasingly obvious frustration, they would have no such luck.

Finally, Allura pulled her fingers away, staggering a few steps backward and breathing hard. Coran hovered over her, expression uncharacteristically serious.

“Anything?” Shiro asked when she seemed to have caught her breath, even though he already knew the answer.

Allura shook her head. “I though I might be able to find him—his mind, his soul—and bring him to the surface, but—” She broke off, voice anguished. “He’s just not _there_.”

Shiro swallowed. “Okay,” he said, as calmly as he could manage, which was not as calmly as he would have liked. “Okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “So we’ll find something else.”

“Shiro’s right,” Coran interjected, patting Allura on the shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll find another way to cure him. No worries!”

“You know,” said Pidge thoughtfully, “this could still just be some type of weird poison. And if it is a purely scientific medical problem, then there should be a scientific solution. I’ll just have to analyze the flower’s chemistry to reverse-engineer an antidote.” She turned toward Hunk. “You still have it, right?”

Hunk nodded, holding up the hastily-repurposed plastic food container that now held the deceptively innocuous-looking rose.

“Good,” said Shiro. “Go do that, then.” He realized the words had come out more harshly than he’d meant them, so he gentled his tone and added, “I know you can do this, Pidge. I have faith in you.”

Pidge nodded at him, her eyes already distant in the way Shiro knew meant she was lost in analyzing a problem. He turned back to Keith, pulling his chair closer to the bed. As the sound of footsteps receded, Shiro rubbed his face with his hands.

He wrapped his fingers around Keith’s wrist, brushing his thumb over the skin until he found the beat of Keith’s pulse. It was weak and thready, not the reassurance he’d hoped. Tightening his grip, Shiro settled in for a long wait.

* * *

 “I hate to say it,” Lance said, once he and Pidge and Hunk were alone on the Green Lion, “but I told you so.” Allura, Romelle, and Coran had withdrawn to Blue, heads ducked closely together as they conferred about stories of obscure Altean healing magics.

“Uh, you told us we were in a computer simulation,” Pidge pointed out, not looking up from her workstation. “A simulation couldn’t do this.”

“Okay, so I was wrong about that—”

“Totally wrong.”

“—but I was right that the planet was dangerous!” Lance leaned against the wall. “Man, being right sucks.”

Hunk nodded. “Poor Keith.” 

Pidge flopped back in her seat. “Poor Shiro, too. It is weird to see him so worried over Keith.” She shook her head. “I mean, I’m sure it’ll be fine—I know we’ll find a way to wake him up—but it’s a reversal of their usual _thing_ , you know?”

Lance arched an eyebrow. “Their usual ‘thing’?”

“Yeah, their thing.” Pidge gestured vaguely with her hands. “You know what I’m talking about, right Hunk?”

“Of course I do,” Hunk said. He took both of Pidge’s hands in his, pulling her out of her chair and dropping his voice to an entirely un-Hunk-like gravelly growl. “You saved me, Keith.”

Pidge reached up to caress his face. “We saved each other!”

Hunk swooned into her arms, bringing his hand dramatically to his forehead. “Oh, Keith!”

“Oh, Shiro!”

Lance sputtered. “They are _not_ like that.” Hunk and Pidge finally broke eye contact, standing up straight again to look at him skeptically. “Okay, they’re a little like that,” he admitted. “But you better not let Shiro hear you making fun of them!”

Pidge snorted. “I think he’s a little preoccupied.”

Lance opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off from by a _ping_ from Pidge’s computer. She scrambled back to her chair, the other two paladins crowding over her shoulder to look at the holographic screen.

“Are those the results?” Lance asked. “What does it mean?”

Pidge’s mouth was pressed into a thin line, and all the levity was gone from Hunk’s voice as he responded: “Nothing good.”

* * *

Shiro knew from the moment he saw Pidge’s face as she walked into the Black Lion that it wasn’t good news.

“It’s weird,” said Pidge. “There’s no trace of poison in his system, and the not-roses? They’re organic, but they’re _pristine_. I couldn’t find any particulate matter at all on the surface, nothing that might be an allergen, let alone poison. They don’t even have pollen! Which, I mean, how do they reproduce? This whole planet is bizarre. I may not be a botanist, but even _I_ know—”

Shiro cut her off. “What does this mean for Keith?”

Pidge shrugged, her face falling. “No clue,” she admitted. “Without a sample of whatever’s making him sick, I don’t see how we can find an antidote.” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Shiro. I really thought I was going to be able to fix this.” Her voice quivered on the last words, and Shiro got up from his seat at Keith’s bedside to put his hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “I know you did your best, and there’s nobody who could have done better. We’ll find another way.” He hoped that he sounded more confident than he felt.

Pidge nodded. “I’ll keep looking,” she said, and the determination in her voice eased, just a little, the tight coil of anxiety that had been sitting in Shiro’s stomach from the moment Keith had collapsed.

“Thank you.” Shiro watched her disappear from the room, then turned back to Keith, lacing their fingers together.

Shiro bowed his head over Keith’s bed. _Keith, Keith, what have you gotten yourself into?_

* * *

Shiro didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, mind running in circles, when footsteps once again approached the room.

“Hey, man.” Shiro turned around to see Hunk standing in the doorway, holding a plate of...something. “I’ve been stress-baking,” Hunk continued. “Figured you might want some.”

He handed the whatever-it-was to Shiro, who examined the plate. It was covered with what looked vaguely like ravioli, except Shiro had never seen pasta of quite that neon shade of orange or that fuzzy-looking texture, and smelled like freshly-baked brownies. Popping one into his mouth, he discovered to his relief that the taste matched the smell. “Thanks, Hunk,” he said, and meant it.

Hunk shifted from side to side, looking uncomfortable. “Keith’s pretty badass,” he finally blurted. “I’m sure he’s gonna be fine.”

Shiro winced. “I’m that obvious, huh?” He might not be the leader anymore, but even so, the last thing Shiro wanted was for the others to be worrying about _him_ right now. “He’s probably just getting back at me for dying and then going into a coma. Turnabout, fair play, that kind of thing.”

“Uh,” said Hunk, and Shiro remembered why he didn’t usually joke about those kinds of things in front of people other than Keith. “Right, sure.” He fell silent for a moment that stretched almost into awkwardness, then gestured at the chair on the other side of Keith’s bed. “Hey, can I sit with you guys for a while?”

“Of course,” Shiro said, frowning in bewilderment at the question. Why had Hunk even asked? Keith was his friend, too, not to mention his team leader. “Go ahead.”

Hunk dropped into the seat. He looked tired, Shiro noticed. Now that he thought about it, enough time had passed since Keith’s collapse that it was probably well past the hour they all usually went to bed. But Hunk was clearly not going anywhere, and neither were the others, still in the other lions searching for answers. The thought made some of the tightness in Shiro’s chest untwist.

* * *

Hours passed, and Shiro’s back had begun to ache. Allura replaced Hunk in the room’s other chair when Hunk left to help Pidge run her analysis. Still Keith didn’t move.

When Pidge and Hunk returned, it was with Lance trailing after them and grim expressions on their faces. “I just—” said Pidge. “There’s _nothing_.” She hung her head, and Allura got up to hug her.

Shiro looked down at the bed in front of him.

Keith couldn’t die. Not now, when the universe needed him most. And it wasn’t only the universe who needed him, if Shiro was being honest with himself. Over the past few years, Shiro’d been kidnapped. Forced to fight. Tortured. Cloned. _Killed_. And he’d made it through it all—not by himself, but with help from his friends and teammates and Keith most of all—stronger in some ways and more aware than ever of his weaknesses in others.

Keith was one of those weaknesses, but even more so, one of his strengths. He was Shiro’s best friend, his confidant, his savior, his _everything_ , and Shiro—

Shiro...

Shiro loved him.

 _Huh_ , Shiro thought, and was suddently hyperaware of himself, his own physical presence, his heart beating under his chest—not racing, as steady as it had ever been—while he breathed in and out looked down at the figure in front of him. At the man—not the boy he’d once been, but the _man_ —who Shiro was in love with. The man who, Shiro was beginning to realize, he’d been in love with for a while now.

Shiro had always considered himself a pretty self-aware person, but maybe he hadn’t been as honest with himself as he’d liked to think.  

He leaned over, brushing Keith’s hair out of his eyes, and then, before he could second-guess himself, pressed a gentle kiss to Keith’s lips.

He sat back up, ignoring the sound of a hand swatting fabric and the whispered _“I told you so!_ ” that came from behind him. Closing his eyes, Shiro took a deep breath. No more hiding from himself now.

When he opened his eyes, Keith was looking up at him. Shiro stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was hallucinating.

“Hey,” Keith said, and immediately sat up to start looking around, blinking.

“Hey,” Shiro responded, and was rescued from having to come up with anything better to say by the cries of Keith’s name from the other paladins as they rushed forward to surround the bed.

“Holy quiznak!” said Hunk. “I should have known that would work.”

“Should have known what would work?” Lance asked. “I wasn’t looking. What happened? I missed it!”

“Shiro kissed him and he just woke up,” Pidge explained, and Shiro felt the heat rising in his cheeks as he looked back at Keith, who raised an eyebrow at him, face otherwise inscrutable.

Lance gasped. “Like in a fairy tale! We _should_ have known that would work!”

“You should have?” Allura sounded confused. “Is that...a common way to heal illnesses on Earth?”

“It is when you’re in love,” Hunk told her, placing what Shiro felt was an unnecessary sing-song emphasis on the last two words.

Though his entire face was starting to feel like it was on fire, Shiro didn’t break eye contact with Keith. He wasn’t going to deny anything, now that he wasn’t denying it to himself.

“Now, hold on,” Pidge interjected. “We don’t know that it was a true-love’s-kiss thing. Maybe he just happened to wake up. Or even if was magic, maybe any of us could have kissed him and it would have worked. Or maybe—”

“Where is your sense of romance?!” Lance, again, sounding genuinely affronted..

Shiro wondered if it was possible to disappear into the floor. Maybe he could convince the Black Lion to let him become one with it again, just for a little while. But Keith didn’t look angry or disgusted, nor was he wearing the sort of awkward-but-sympathetic expression that Shiro assumed would accompany a _you’re like a brother to me_ letdown speech.

“This is amazing,” Hunk said. “Okay, if Keith gets to be Sleeping Beauty, I wonder what other fairy tale magic we could find on that planet.”

“Uh, we are not going back there,” said Pidge.

“I still can’t believe I missed it,” said Lance.

“I am not a princess,” said Keith.

Everybody else fell silent. “Don’t worry,” Shiro assured him. “You’ll always be my knight in shining armor.”

“Oookay!” Pidge said loudly. “I’m going to leave now! Hey, everybody, don’t you guys all have stuff to do? Very urgent stuff? Back on the other lions? Right now?”

“Aww, but this is captivating,” Lance complained.

Shiro turned and shot Pidge a grateful look over his shoulder as she grabbed Lance by the arm and pulled him firmly out the door. The others followed quickly, though Hunk looked back at the last moment to flash a quick thumbs up.

When the room had finally emptied, Shiro turned back to look at Keith. His earlier embarrassment had dissipated. Okay, so maybe he could have found a way to tell Keith his feelings without kissing him while he was unconscious in front of a room full of other people. Maybe, possibly, Shiro could have found a way to be smoother.

But this was _Keith_. His best friend, the one person he’d always felt comfortable around. Even if Keith didn’t feel the same way, they’d figure it out.

Keith had swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit up straight, and was looking down at the floor, mouth pinched in an expression that Shiro knew meant he was thinking hard. Shiro said nothing, watching him, waiting for him to come to a decision.

“A kiss, huh,” Keith said eventually. He looked up at Shiro, mouth curling into a soft, private smile. “Maybe I should have thought of that one when _you_ were unconscious.”

Shiro laughed, flooded with relief. “Guess you’ll just have to make it up to me.”

“Guess I will,” said Keith, and proceeded to do exactly that.


End file.
